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Southwestern Hzstorical Quarterly

1975], 18), the fraudulent story by the bogus Russian otter hunter Vasilli Pe-trovich Tarakanov (the best expose of this fraudulent manuscript is found inKenneth N. Owens, The Wrek of the Sv. Nikolai: Two Nanawe.s of the Fnst Rum.-.tan Expedition to the Oiegon County, i8o8- 8xo [Portland: Oregon HistoricalSociety, 19851, 77-87); and the imaginary reminiscences attributed to LorenzoAsisara, who was not even alive during the events he supposedly recalled insuch gruesome detail (see E. L. Williams, "Narrative of a Mission Indian, etc.,"in Edward S. Harrison, Hastoy of Santa Cruz County, California [San Francisco:Pacific Press Publishing Co., 1892], 45-48).All of this is unfortunate, because there are good, even very good, selectionsin this fat volume. Charles F. Merbs has written an excellent summary of recentresearch on "Patterns of Health and Sickness in the Precontact Southwest."John L. Kessell shows his usual scholarly accomplishment in "Spaniards andPueblos: From Crusading Intolerance to Pragmatic Accommodation." John R.Johnson has produced an authoritative study of the Chumash population atthree California missions. W. Michael Mathes has contributed an interestingstudy of some unique characteristics of the Jesuit missions in Baja California.Charles W. Polzer wrote an commentary on the Quincentenary challenge tohistorians that is so good it should have been the introductory essay for thevolume.These few scholarly studies are lonely standouts in a very uneven volume ofincongruous papers. Possibly they indicate the difficulty of translating lecturesinto printed words. No doubt the book should have been edited with a firmerhand (including serious self-examination by the editor). But clearly it is not yettime to accept the author's view that anthropologists make good historians.Huntinglon Libiay HARRY KELSEYThe Jou tney of Coonado, 1540-1542. 'Translated and edited by George ParkerWinship. Introduction by Donald C. Cutter. (Golden, Colo.: Fulcrum Pub-lishing, 199o. lIp. xxx+233. Publisher's preface, introduction, bibliogra-phy, notes. $27.95.)In 1540-1541 Francisco Vasquez de Coronado left the town of Compostelain western New Spain and led an epic journey into what are today the states ofArizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and, possibly, Nebraska. Thesearch was for the mythical Quivera or, more precisely, another great inlige-nous society like those inhabiting the central valley of Mexico and in Peru. In-stead the explorers traveled into the center of the North American continent,almost made contact with the remnants of the Hernando de Soto expechtion,which had explored through the American Southeast and up the ArkansasRiver, and never found the Quivera of their di eams.They encountered new peoples and new lands. The sheer distance coveredand explored greatly reduced the teIca nuoguta, unexplored and unknownland, from European maps thereafter. The Puebloan Indian groups and Plainstribes were no longer grand myths of great wealth.The story of Coronado, who should more correctly be called Vasquez deCoronado or Vasquez as he is in the book, is an account of one early Spanish